Our Founder
Tim Craig
Tim Craig has been an early childhood educator for more than 45 years. He received his BA in Human Development in 1971 from Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, California, a nationally known and highly respected institution specializing in progressive education. In 1975, after teaching and co-directing in the San Fernando Valley for several years, he founded Children’s Circle Nursery School.
Based on a philosophy that integrates the family, child, and school into a supportive community, the environment at Children’s Circle is geared toward nurturing both parents and children. A mixed-age curriculum allows older children to help socialize the younger ones, while they, in turn, learn patience and caring. By providing a setting that minimizes competition, Children’s Circle creates an atmosphere in which children develop trust, independence, competency, and feelings of self-worth.
In the forty-eight years since Tim Craig first opened Children’s Circle, the scope of the school has expanded to include an infant/toddler program, an annual family group-camping trip, an ACA accredited summer camp for alumni, and a regular series of parenting classes.
A Director-Mentor in the state of California, Tim Craig is past vice-president of the Association of Child Development Specialists. In November 2016, he co-led a session on how to involve more men in the field of early childhood at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. He helped plan a parenting seminar at the Skirball in June 2011, at which Dan Siegel (Parenting from the Inside Out) delivered the keynote, “Mindsight and Parenting: Raising Compassionate and Resilient Children.” In June 2010, Tim and his wife helped organize and co-sponsor two events at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles that focused on attachment and featured as a keynote speaker Sir Richard Bowlby, a widely recognized expert on attachment theory. He traveled to Reggio Emilia, Italy, in 2007, to participate in a conference with Reggio Children to study this educational approach to early childhood.
As a Child Development Specialist, Tim Craig works with private clients as well, offering help to children who are developmentally delayed and providing guidance to their parents.
A member of several professional early childhood organizations, Tim Craig regularly gives talks and workshops on a variety of parenting and educational issues to local parent and professional groups, schools, and colleges.
